FAIRMONT — The Fairmont City Council met on Monday night and let an action go without a motion on a campground design and also approved the creation of the community center advisory board and the members of that board.

The action item was to enter into a contract with Bolton & Menk for a campground design in an amount not to exceed $35,000. The history behind this is that the council has had the development of a city-owned campground as a priority project for many years. The goal was furthered when the University of Minnesota Extension conducted an economic analysis of a city-owned campground in Fairmont in 2019. The analysis concluded that the potential economic contribution to the local community would range from roughly $187,000 to $380,000 annually.

This project has been in the budget since 2020 and due to COVID-19 was not furthered until this year. There was a request for qualifications made to obtain the qualifications of interested firms and select a firm to contract with based on their qualifications. Bolton and Menk was chosen from the three firms. This action did not go any further due to two motions being made and no council member seconded the motions. One of those motions was by Councilman Randy Lubenow to table this item and the other was by Councilman Bruce Peters to approve this item. Both failed due to the lack of a second.

In other news, the council did approve the creation of the community center advisory board. This board is a temporary board that will serve in similar ways at the airport and park board and their functions are to assist staff and provide recommendations on the planning, design and development of the community center. This temporary advisory board would disband after the completion of the community center and the community center would go under the park advisory board.

City staff recommended that the advisory board be created with five members that would be appointed by the council. Two members would come from the existing community center committee, two from the Fairmont Youth Hockey Association and one from the Fairmont School District. Along with the board members, there would be a council liaison as well as a city staff liaison.

The advisory board will consist of Brandon Edmundson and Michael Edman from the original community center committee, Kyle Gustafson and Mike Anderson from the hockey association and Mat Mahoney from the Fairmont School District. The council liaison will be Councilmember-At-Large Michele Miller and Councilman Lubenow. The city liaison will be City Administrator Cathy Reynolds.

The next Fairmont City Council meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. on July 26.